Challenges to Biblical inspiration continue to fail

Those of us who believe with all our strength that there exists an omnipotent Spirit God who created all the currently existing universe including all physical matter and even space, contend that the Holy Bible is His inspired revelation to man. We contend that, today, it is His only means of contact from Himself to us. We also contend that we may speak to Him and He will hear, though His written word remains His only revelation to us.

The world is full of skeptics concerning the above statements and we shall attempt again, to offer the evidence which proves them. Some of the facts are so compelling that one can only fail to understand by trying to do so. If one's mind is resolved against such, no amount of proof will convince them. However, to those who have such a mindset, we urge you to read this article with as near an open mind as possible and you just might, see the light.

In preparation of the explanations to follow, let us first remind our readers that our claim of inspiration and thereby inerrancy, applies only the original documents written by the inspired apostles, prophets and others who received the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And here is the first point that non-believers will grasp and assault every thing else that is said. Of the original written documents, there are none now in existence.

So we are faced with the first detailed explanation as to how we then can know the documents we now have are accurate. Good question but it is easily answered. Keep in mind that there were no mechanical means of printing in those days. All documents were hand written by scribes. Now, those documents which were original, were given to scribes who copied them and passed them on to others who also copied those copies. There are presently over 5600 Greek manuscript copies of the New Testament, plus over 19,000 copies in Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and

Aramaic languages for a total count of over 24,000. Now, one might ask, how does that help to know that these are accurate copies? It is simply because the texts are regarded as 99.5% pure in those huge numbers. The small percentage of differences can readily be identified as minor errors of the scribes who were extremely meticulous in their copying. The errors can be pointed out because of the huge majority of documents having the correct wording. And these copies were reportedly written in the first century A.D., within the approximate period of 70 years after Jesus crucifixion.

The integrity of these documents is far greater than those of any other ancient writer's documents simply because of the massive numbers preserved of the New Testament proving it. Even so, our claim of inerrancy applies only to the originals, since there are some copies with minor errors. Now, with that said, let us look at the major items which prove themselves and the entire Bible as being inspired of God and therefore, inerrant.

First, although skeptics will not view this as proof, but the Bible claims to have been inspired. Here are some spots of those claims:

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Peter 1:21-22 KJV)

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV)

There are numerous other scriptures which have similar statements, and in fact, when the Biblical canon was established all those books selected as belonging to the Holy Bible, had some claim to inspiration, if only as much as “…and God said…” or some such reference to the Lord speaking, either to the writer or to the reader.

So, this should suffice as to the Bible claiming to be God’s word. Now let us find some facts which could not have been known by uninspired writers of their time. Scientific or Geographic facts for instance.

We all know that, as little as a couple of centuries ago there were many fallacies in scientific knowledge which have now been proven wrong. And when we speak of millennia, we can see that very little facts of today’s science or geography would have been known. So with that in mind, read these:

The cycle of water from the seas vapor to the clouds, rain to the earth and travel back to the sea was not known by ordinary man until a Roman engineer by the name of Marcus Vitruvius figured it out in approximately 30 B.C. Yet, the Biblical writers wrote of it 1600 years before that.

“It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth; he that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them.” (Amos 9:6 KJV)

“The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” (Ecclesiastes 1:6-7 KJV)

“For he maketh small the drops of water: they pour down rain according to the vapour thereof: Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly.” (Job 36:27-28 KJV)

It may seem like small talk, but the fact that these writers had no possible way of knowing the true cycle of water in their day, yet they said nothing amiss.

Commodore Matthew Maury who lived from1806 to1873, was once sick and his daughter was reading the Bible to him. When she came to the passage of Psalms 8:8, he noticed the phrase "paths of the sea". Once he had recovered and was seaworthy again, he began his search for those "paths of the sea" and he found them. He made charts where ships could sail safely in one path and back in another, from New York to England. He became known as the “Father of Oceanography”.

Job again contains information no one knew back in those ancient days:

“He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” (Job 26:7)

There are still more of these types of knowledge being spoken long before man himself discovered them. But for lack of space, let us look briefly at fulfilled prophecies as another proof of inspiration.

In Daniel 2:39-43 the prophet interprets the king’s dream and tells precisely of the four kingdoms which were in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. They were, Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman. They came precisely as prophesied.

There were separate prophesies made that three ancient cities would be totally destroyed and never rebuilt. They are Nineveh: (Zephaniah 2:12-15), Babylon (13:1-22) and Tyre (Ezekiel 26:). They are to this day, barren.

There are numerous other fulfilled prophesies, in fact, there are over 300 prophecies of the coming messiah, Jesus the Son of God, all of which were fulfilled precisely in his birth, life, death and resurrection. Statisticians have noted that no one could have faked more than 7 of those and that it would have been completely impossible for anyone except Jesus to fulfill all of them.

One would have to read and study the Holy Bible in order to discover the many other proofs that these writers were necessarily inspired of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told his apostles that he would send a comforter who was the Holy Spirit to them and that he would bring to their remembrance, all that Jesus had taught them and also guide them into all truths. The fulfillment of that is recorded in the second chapter of Acts which all people should read.

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Joel was born in 1930 near Gadsden, Alabama, and attended public schools in Cherokee County. After serving a tour of duty in the Army during the Korean War, Joel attended Jacksonville State University, majoring in business administration (with a minor in economics). He became a Christian in 1948, and although he followed a secular career (retiring from Allied Signal Aerospace in 1997), Joel is an avid student of the Holy Bible and related works, as well as biblical history. He is the author of Final Stronghold (2003), available from Amazon. Send Joel a message.